Mountains and Molehills

"When I listen to the very partial presentation, I am fully with them -- when I listen to the other side, I have to accept that they also have logic.
"We do have to find a solution in which nobody will feel discriminated against, and at the same time we don't see the pictures every day of hundreds of people fighting in the most ugly way."
Natan Sharansky, Jewish Agency

An ancient hierarchy of religious devotion in a patriarchal-led tradition of worship. It is all believing Jews who worship their maker, but the ultra-Orthodox reserve unto themselves the special privileges of orthodoxy and faithfulness unmatched by others whose faith is far less urgent than their own. On the other hand, it is always the ultra-orthodox who remain so wedded to tradition that their inflexibility causes strains within society.

Reform Judaism now has its share of female rabbis. Reform Judaism is to their religion what the United Church is to Christianity; a wishy-washy social institution that acknowledges the presence of the Almighty. This, to the ultra-Orthodox is not Judaism, it is a wan reflection of a wannabe sect that does not even approximate the religion that they themselves worship with their tefillim and their payes.

It represents an abomination - in the eyes of the offended and outraged ultra-Orthodox to see women posing as rabbis adorned in men's worship garb, seeking their rightful place at the Wailing Wall. Surely this represents an assault on Judaism, a pain in the eye of the Holy One, to allow upstart women to display themselves as though to mock all that is holy.

Women of the Wall, a protest group of intemperate, insurgent females who have created a storm of infamous protest for the past 24 years displayed themselves in the formation of a group of ten brazen women, among them female rabbis, draped in prayer shawls and insisting on their right to pray where only bearded men in black may.

Little wonder there was outrage. Little wonder the police responded. Little wonder the women were led away by police. After conducting their service wearing those shawls which only men are 'authorized' to don, they were detained. Not arrested, detained.

Rabbi Susan Silverman (centre) prays with her daughter (left) before being detained at the Western Wall. Photo: Reuters

"It's just so utterly absurd that there are laws against Jews praying wearing their prayer clothes in Israel", moaned Susan Silverman, a Reform rabbi, taken into brief custody with her 17-year-old daughter.  Women of the Wall has filed a legal challenge to the ultra-Orthodox dominance of the Wailing Wall's governing board.

However, there is a rule that only men may pray at the wall, wearing traditional garb. And this is a rule that has been upheld by Israel's Supreme Court. So good luck there, heritage and traditions do not take kindly to protest and conversion.

That same Supreme Court decision provides a separate area, Robinson's Arch, for women. There they may pray in any manner suitable to them. Alas, the only manner suitable to them is where they are expressly forbidden by tradition and by law. 

 

"The High Court's decision is what it is. That has to be respected", stated police spokesman, Mickey Rosenfeld.